Why German fighters generally attacked B-17 bomber Formations from the front direction - Deep Dive

In the first ½ of 1944 8th air force Bomber gunners shot down a fighter for around every 21,600 rounds fired in combat. Head-on attacks were adopted by the German, exploiting the 610 mph closing speeds and bomber gunner reaction time struggles. This gave a fighter advantage in attacking the formation, especially if multiple fighters attacked.The advantage shifted to the formation gunners in tail attacks, were deflection aiming was low and gunners had ample time to track, aim and fire. The video will justify the conclusion assertions.

[@UAuaUAuaUA]

Another great contribution from this channel. By 1944, German fighters had armored cockpits from the front and the back. This means, a small fighter with a reasonably protected pilot fires at the crew of a large aircraft that has zero protection from the front. The other advantage the Germans had was they could investigate downed German aircraft every day, and improve what was bad. For example, they found pilots killed by bullets fired from behind with a shot in the head. They improved the armor to go all the way up to the headrest and that solved the problem. Destroying German fighter aircraft did not have much of an impact in 1944, as Germany produced often around a hundred every day. The main problem was the lack of good pilots and the gasoline shortage. Hans-Ulrich Rudel, one of the best German pilots, was shot down 30 times and always managed to survive and fight on. He capitulated on the last day of the war to the Americans.

[@ForTehNguyen]

attacking from front also allows fighter to have a chance of killing pilots, bombardier crew

[@markdavis2475]

Eric Brown described how they quickly found that a frontal attack was the best way to bring down a FW Condor. That was a couple of years before B17's were being attacked in the same manner.

[@neilwilson5785]

The statistical approach pays off yet again! Great work.

[@grizwoldphantasia5005]

It's generally what I thought, but that short attack time works against the fighters too. Unless your gunsight is spot on, 3 seconds doesn't seem like enough time for corrections. On the other hand, a bomber is a much bigger target and it's not maneuvering much at all. I wonder if it's possible to repeat this analysis from the fighter's point of view.

[@kirotheavenger60]

It's definitely something that was considered from the fighter's PoV. But the combination of their greater firepower and the larger bomber on a consistent path meant they'd be much more able to down a bomber in the short time than vice versa

[@angelabrackett4408]

Would you ever consider making a video about the gun camera footage? How it was technically used by the pilot and what it role it played in tactics analysis etc? Thanks!

[@davidg3944]

Your videos are so clearly presented and well documented - well done!

[@rrsteamer]

I don’t recall it being mentioned, but another reason for a frontal attack is that during a bomb ‘run’ (flight prior to bomb release) the flight control is controlled by the Norden bomb sight. Regardless of whether the lead or follow planes, bomb release required level, consistent flight. Also with the bomb aimer occupied, means one less gun to resist frontal attack. Also, there might be a limitation on actual gun aiming for the top or ball turrets due to fuselage interference. All this takes place in a few moments. Like one English ‘gunner’ told me, the chances of getting the correct lead on an attacking fighter aircraft was very difficult at best, that some used the “spray” method. Moving the gun(s) in a circular motion ahead the attacker in hopes the plane would fly thru the lead and perhaps hit a vital part of the enemy aircraft. Just think, what is the trajectory of a 50 caliber round, flat? Or how much drop in few thousand feet. Since I wasn’t there, experience is lacking. It is always interesting to read from reports and testimony of those who were there. But it is interesting to get a ‘picture’ of how it was, remembering, that many didn’t come back.

[@tokencivilian8507]

Great "by the numbers" vid from the period sources. Love the channel.

[@OptiPopulus]

0:03 Pretty sure the co pilot got it with that cockpit hit. The pilot is probably wounded or dead as well.

[@chrisstrebor]

Ya I seen that hit, and the one engine looked like it got hit too

[@PackAPunchPro]

Fantastic content as ever!

[@stumpythedwarf8712]

You're videos are stupendous. Keep up the great work. Thank you!

[@Troy_Tempest]

It's a crime your channel doesn't have 500,000 members!

[@nawtynick9]

What an incredibly informative video. Thank you so much for compiling such a wealth of documents.

[@chiefbigtoe7260]

Lot of never released Luftwaffe gun camera was lost from fires. I cant imagine all the lost history!

[@Getoffmycloud53]

The column represents the number of fighters claimed to have been shot down, which was many times the number that was really shot down. The head on attack increased the likelihood of hitting the flight crew of bombers, while exposing the fighter to as little as possible return fire from the defensive gunners. If set up correctly it requires little or no deflection shooting. But setting up a frontal attack requires time and space (with or without ground control), the attack itself is fast (combined speed of both) and the shooting window just a split second and setting up a second frontal attack run takes a lot of time to the point of being impractical. The frontal attack was very effective for single engined fighters, but it required skilled pilots and control of the sky. EDIT: lot of errors in the previous iteration of this post! It has been a while but iirc German Zerstoerer units were very effective in the early phase of the US bomber campaign - the first half of ‘43. Later in early to mid ‘44 the single engined Sturmbock armored fighters were very effective, but the additional weight meant that they were easy prey for US escorts, so they had to be protected by other fighters to stand a chance.

[@ichmalealsobinich]

German interceptors especially FW-190 were armoured in front and cockpit against the 0,50 cal. rounds.. furthermore, a sigle engined fast and agile fighter is a tiny target for a bomber gunner who has no relevant visier for his gun. In particular the waist gunner was shooting without adequate aiming.

[@johnciummo3299]

You are unbelievable! Your content is incredible. Please more!

[@erickent3557]

Nice job as always!! Interesting to see the frontal attack percentage from '43! It may have become less frequent throughout '44, due to various factors. An order issued by Galland in Sept '43 reads: "The attack from the front is from now on to be the exception ... As the standard attack, the attack from the rear with small angle of approach is ordered." (translation from "The Luftwaffe Fighter Force" edited by David Isby).

[@franktreppiedi2208]

That sounds like a book I'm going to get.

[@ichmalealsobinich]

Nearly every claim of a bomber gunner was incorrect and overclaimed. He was inable to decide whether the enemy fighter went into dive due to an impact or simply by a flight manoevre in combat. In contrast to fighters using gun cams none of the gunners claim could be verified.

[@felixk8640]

Impeccable content. As always.

[@brentandvuk]

Enjoyed the video

[@WilliamHarbert69]

Hard learned lessons. Thank you.

[@Davie-jx4rh]

Kind of weird that after playing combat simulators I learned to attack bomber formations from the front in a dive, then dive out as soon as I lost the bomber I was shooting at in the sight

[@daveaauk]

You always carefully mention many of the documents are declassified. I am curious, are any of them still classified or has that expired over time? Another great upload!

[@mattcavanaugh6082]

A 2.5x excess claim estimate seems low, considering documented excess claims of 10x or greater for some of the major raids.

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

Great video...👍

[@WeimarAmerica]

Thank you!

[@realdeal3262]

Brilliant report.

[@stuntmanmike37]

Could you do a video on B-25 armament during the war? Specifically, I'm curious about the .50 caliber cheek gun packs that were added for strafing runs. It seems like every flying warbird Mitchell today has them, but looking through wartime combat pictures I see very few -25s actually carrying them. My question is, were they really prevalent during the war or do warbird owners just put them on because they look cool?

[@greghanson5696]

Excellent presentation as always! Love your channel!

[@margraveofgadsden8997]

I know you did a comparison of the b-17 and b-24, but could you do one that focused on their defensive armament? For instance the b-17 had 3 more .50 machine guns, but those extra weapons were flexible mounts with limited fields of fire. Honestly, the one operated by the radio man seems completely useless. The b-24 I think had a better tail turret, the top turret didn’t have those metal support things obstructing the view, and the nose turret had a dedicated gunner instead of being operated by the bombardier, and had a better field of fire up high. Did one bomber or the other have an advantage in defensive armament, and if so, did it make a difference?

[@vblake530530]

Are you sure that Overkill Number was just 2.2???

[@WildBillCox13]

Fascinating.

[@mandolinic]

What happened to the many hundreds of thousands of rounds that were fired, but missed? Eventually they'd hit the ground, so how far did they travel? Were they a significant hazard to people on the ground?

[@karlkirchweger4190]

When there was an air alarm we all were ordered into the shelter and nearly no one was on the street or field to be in danger from machine gun or flak splinters

[@stepbruv8780]

Holy shit that fighter flying into their own flak gunfire

[@matydrum]

I don't understand why the bombers didn't keep some tracers because, you'd think it would be a lot more scary for German fighters to see all those tracers going up at you at once and that no tracers would encourage them to pursue the attack closer no?

[@JohnSmith-bx8zb]

RAF bombers did not use tracers or used their guns at night unless absolutely needed as it gave the bomber away

[@matydrum]

@@JohnSmith-bx8zb yeah but that's an entire different context...

[@nightjarflying]

Tracers were removed because they reduce gunner accuracy. Gunners cannot be relied upon to 'lead' the target correctly using tracers because it's too difficult for the brain to calculate intuitively - the bullets slow down a LOT after a few hundred metres unlike in target shooting say. Imagine target shooting using tracer while you are on a moving truck & the target is on another much faster truck. Imagine your bullets are losing 20% to 30% of their speed as they travel! The tracer is telling you something that's history - tracers misled gunners about the actual trajectory of their bullets, as they appeared to follow a straight path for a few hundred meters before veering off to the side - consequently, gunners neglected their sights, which were calibrated to deal with offset shooting and distance. Gunnery sight computers are superior [once they became available on the B29] - if the correct conditions are set up on the computer, the gunner/controller need only put the target in the crosshairs & fire. This is why it's not profitable to fire at a fighter that isn't aiming for you i.e. supporting fire wastes ammo when working in 3D against an aircraft moving 200 mph faster than you are - better to 'solve' approach paths that are aimed at you as the computer can solve the 'lead' for those paths.

[@5co756]

​@@matydrumNormally you can't see tracers if you being shot at , it's only for the shooter .

[@JohnSmith-bx8zb]

@@matydrum not really just 2 ways of getting ordnance on to target

[@FrankJmClarke]

Of course attacking from the rear gives the fighter more time to make hits too. Although they would get fewer attack runs.

[@Joe93819]

And they’d be a sitting duck

[@marvinacklin792]

Brutal facts

[@UncleJoeLITE]

Very interesting, thanks. The numbers are all over the place & bear no relation to Luftwaffe losses ofc. Bomber gunners, other than maybe the rear as insurance, seem largely for morale & to scare novice German pilots.

[@adolfofloresdeleon4763]

Quien seria el enemigo, no entender porque esta el rodaje en inglihis

[@gamedude412]

So this is going sound kinda dumb, the hangars of the fighter squadron were only painted to train a head on profile. This meant the longest and cheapest training was to lock in your attack to eyeball frontal landmarks of the bomber

[@ivekuukkeli2156]

In head on attack the gunners have very much difficulties to see the fighter coming towards in that time period about 4 seconds. The profile of head on attacking fighter is very thin. The noise and coldness and fatigue for several hours make situation awarness even more difficult. Did those gunners have polarized eyeglases ...

[@matydrum]

I know that some gun positions had a sun filter, for sure the top turret and belly turret. Basically all equiped with reflective gun sights. But I don't know if those filters were just tanned or really polarized.

[@francescofissore161]

I know for sure the crewmembers could wear goggles and/or sunglasses, and neither war polarized - tinted yes, green or amber or dark brown but, not polarized.

[@JohnSmith-bx8zb]

The RAF attacked German bombers from the front when possible.

[@dukecraig2402]

Woah, there's something you need to do, you keep using the words "claimed" and "credited" interchangeably when they have two very different definitions, at one point you use the term "overcredited" when referring to the statistic of 2.2 then later you use "overclaimed" when referring to the statistic of 2.2, and specifically you said "overcredited" at the point when the report you show on the screen says "overclaimed", overclaimed gives everything a different meaning and outcome. You also used the terms "credited" and "claimed" both at different points when referring to the number 6,098 of enemy fighter's shot down by defensive gunners. Going back to the number you use, 2.2, to calculate that the number of rounds fired per enemy fighter downed is 2.2 times higher than the report I don't believe is applicable since as I pointed out it says "overclaimed" in the report when referring to that number, the actual definition of overclaimed when used in these reports would mean that the final tally of 6,098 fighters shot down was figured out by the claims board as 6,098 credited out of 13,415 claims turned in (6,098×2.2=13,415). To put things in perspective as to why claims were 2.2 times higher than the actual number of fighter's shot down is actually a simple concept and not what people like to suggest such as the gunners were lying or thinking they were better at what they were doing than they actually were, it's easy to understand when you consider that what they were doing was not like playing a video game, in the first place they were 5 miles above the earth in -50°f temperatures fighting for their lives, when you had a fighter making a pass on your box and bursts into flames, or any of the other criteria met for a kill claim, and you've got five different gunners in three different bombers firing at it it's easy to understand why two or three of those gunners would think he was the guy who hit it and all turn in a claim for it in their after action debriefing, and all three might very well have been hitting it, the claims board did give out shared credits, but even if only one was hitting it it'd be easy for multiple gunners who were all shooting at it to think they were the guy who hit it, whether they were using tracers or not, when they were using tracers as one of your previous videos explained they were actually deceptive and had gunners thinking they were hitting fighters when they weren't, then you've got the period when they weren't using tracers which makes it easy to understand why more guy's than were actually hitting the fighter might have thought they were, and you'd have no clue who else was shooting at it at the same time even other gunners in your own bomber much less the one's in other bombers, people who've been in combat talk about losing their situational awareness of things around them from developing tunnel vision well there you go, it's not like you'd be shooting at a fighter coming at you and at the same time you'd say to yourself "Well what do you know, looks like Joey over in the Yankee Clipper is shooting at the same fighter I am", once again this wasn't a video game, it was life and death so yea, it's easy to understand why several different gunners on different bombers could turn in a claim on the same kill. Now I'm not going to sit here and suggest that after sorting through all the claims in the debriefing reports that the claims board gave out a 100% accurate amount of credits that exactly matched the actual number of fighter's shot down, but I'm confident that 6,098 is close and not over inflated by a facor of 2.2, there's no way the claims board was that far off after going through all the after action reports and recreating what happened, it was their job to get the most accurate number possible for the sake of intelligence keeping track of enemy strength, not only are there the rules and criteria to establish a credit that you show here but in the past you've also shown from a bomber command's mission objectives statement this; "The fact that the intelligence section and claims board of this command has taken particularly great pains in the screening process to eliminate duplications and invalid claims assures that the list of approved claims is a reliable source of data for a study of enemy losses inflicted by gunners", so yea the number may not be spot on but I'm having a had time with the narrative that they credited them with almost two and a half more aircraft than they actually shot down, and once again it does say "overclaimed" on that report not "overcredited", I'm sure whoever in the USAAF or the Defense Studies Committee (or whatever they were called) were using the correct term for what they meant, meaning that the number 6,098 is after "duplicate and invalid claims" have been sorted out and it's at least a close number, as is the number of rounds fired per fighter downed, within acceptable reason, i can see the claims board being 10% or 20% or even maybe 50% wrong in their conclusions but 220% wrong? I just can't see that, if the claims board got the number of enemy fighter's downed by 8th Air Force fighter's as close as they did I can't see them being wrong by 220% when it comes to the defensive gunners on the bombers. Irregardless we need to quit using the terms overclaimed and overcredited and claims and credits interchangeably because they do indeed have two entirely different definitions and their use draws two entirely different conclusions, it's creating a good bit of confusion and creating doubt with your conclusions I'm sure not only with me but with others also, matter of fact why don't you do a video explaining the difference between claims and credits and how there was a claims board and the processes they used to sort things out to determine the number of fighter's shot down and the credits given out for them, before you start working on videos about medium bombers 😉.

[@michaelshore2300]

They did so because that was the way British Naval pilots attacked Condors over the Atlantic

[@Trashcansam123]

It wouldn’t be that crazy to think they came up with the conclusion independently

[@stewartmillen7708]

I think the better bit of information to know if "how many 50-caliber hits did it take to take down a fighter". What I read on a War Thunder Form is: 50-caliber: 30 hits 20-mm: 5 hits This ratio seems a bit skewed to me, as most games rate German 20-mm cannon as being 2x, rather than 6x, more destructive in their firepower per gun. A ratio of 2x would suggest only 10 50-caliber hits on average would down a fighter; a ratio of 3x would suggest an average of 15 hits (3x may be closer as it adjusts for the slightly higher rate of fire for the 50-caliber (c. 750 rpm in your table) versus the German 20 mm 151/20 (650 rpm). 5 hits for a 20-mm cannon to down a fighter seems about right, given that the Germans calculated that it would take 20 or even 25 hits on average to down a US heavy bomber like the B-17. The Germans calculated that a FW-190 with 4 x 20 mm cannon and 2 x 13 mm machine guns hits with about 2 % of its 500 rounds. This means that the 'average' German fighter pilot will only achieve 10 cannon hits before expending all his ammunition, which usually isn't enough to bring down a US heavy bomber. This shortcoming was why the Germans continued to mount more and heavier cannon on their fighters. By contrast, it was said of the F4F Wildcat fighter took only 2 seconds of fire (six 50s, 168 50-caliber rounds) to shoot down a Japanese Zero. If indeed 30 were needed to bring down a Zero, that mean the US pilot would need to hit with 18 % of his rounds; if only 15, this would be 9 %, and 10 would be 6 %. So maybe this is a semantic question, of 'overall fire' (total rounds expended) versus 'targeted fire' (rounds expended when the target is in the bullseye of the targeting device). Bomber gunners fired their guns in bursts of two seconds, which is about 28 rounds for a single 50-caliber gun station and 56 for a twin-50 station. Depending on what the requirement would be for shooting down a fighter, it would mean a single-50 would have to accurately target the fighter for the full two seconds to achieve close to the 30 round threshold, but might need only a second or less of accurate fire to hit a 15 round or 10 round requirement. Of course, twin 50 gun stations would half the required time of accurately targeted fire. In composing this reply, I did some digging and ran across a US Navy document on ship AA gun effectiveness, which I thought both interesting and illuminating. Here are the rounds expended per 50-caliber for each attacking aircraft destroyed: 1942: 9,496 1943: 9,798 1944: 29,552 (!!!) 1945: 11,285 The first thing that struck me was how similar the 1942 and 1943 Naval AA figures are to the uncorrected totals for the first six months of 1944 for bomber defensive fire you cited (9,280 rounds). But why the big jump in 1944, and to a lesser extend, in 1945? My interpretation is that this data suggests that rating weapon effectiveness by 'rounds per X destroyed' isn't a particularly good way to do this. My explanation for the 1944 jump in the naval data is that US fleets became larger, with many batteries of AA guns, so every attacking enemy fighter had more guns aimed and firing at them than in previous years. Also, fighter coverage over the fleets was better, so fewer attackers penetrated the fighter defenses. Even if all the attackers are destroyed (that's a good thing, right?) the fact that more guns are shooting off their ammo will raise the 'rounds to destroy X' metric and perversely make the weapon look less effective. Indeed, in the naval data, the increase in 'the number of rounds shot off to destroy an attacker' metric happened just not with 50-calibers, but also of most of the AA batteries, from 5-inchers to 40-mm pom-pom guns. The simplest explanation is that proportionately fewer attackers are being shot at by proportionately greater defenders, of all gun types. So--given that US bomber formations in 1944 and 1945 were much larger than in 1943, is the "rounds fired per each fighter shot down" a good metric? With better fighter escort, more often it's isolated or paired fighters slipping through the escort who get to the bombers, and not swarms like 1943, which means that more often than not multiple gun stations will be shooting at the fighters. Even if they all score hits and shoot the fighter down (the best possible case) it's going to raise the number of rounds expended in such calculations. Finally, just like with the US Navy AA data, fewer and fewer German fighters breaking through the fighter escort raises the 'rounds expended per kill". The values jump to over 20,000, over 60,000, over 100,000, even 2.7 million in February 1945.

[@margraveofgadsden8997]

You missed the part where it said “there was no relative disadvantage for b-24s armed with nose turrets against head on attacks.” And where exactly did they get the information that German pilots preferred to attack b-24s? That seems like the kind of information they wouldn’t have until after the war.

[@dukecraig2402]

First off if you listen a lot of the studies and reports that he cites the information from is from post war studies, which would in all reality have more and better information to draw conclusions from, including captured German records and interviews with Germans themselves. And the narrative that the Germans preferred to attack B24's is true but I don't think you understand that it was in mixed B17 and B24 formations, the reason they did is since B17's were a little slower than B24's the B17 boxes were put up front to set the pace, this not only put all the B24's boxes at the back in the notorious "tail end charlie" position but since the B24's also flew about 2,000 ft lower than B17's when loaded for a mission that put them not only in the tail end charlie position but also 2,000 ft lower which means they couldn't benefit from the additional interlocking fire of the B17's defensive guns, so German fighter's could line up and attack the B24's as if they were on their own, interviews with German POW's during the war and with German pilots after the war confirmed this, and it probably didn't even take that to realize it since the intelligence section undoubtedly would have understood that just from reading through the after action reports, it's also why after a while they quit flying mixed B17 and B24 mission's and restructured the units so they were either all B17 or all B24 so yea, they understood after a while that the B24's at the back were getting swarmed on by the fighter's probably before they even had a chance to interview captured German pilots.

[@williamromine5715]

I agree. Did the B-24 have fewer forward firing guns? Everyone keeps saying how much better the B-17 was, yet nobody seems to be able to say why there were so many more B-24s produced. Why would the Americans make a worse bomber? Did they not care about sending their bomber crews to die in inferior bombers, when they had a much superior plane? None of this makes any sense to me.

[@flarvin8945]

@@williamromine5715the several reasons a less capable aircraft might be produced more. Easier to produce, cheaper or shortage availability of key parts like engines for better design.

[@JohnSmith-bx8zb]

Makes you wonder how daylight missions of RAF crews carrying the same weight of ordnance to Berlin got away so lightly. Oh yes they were flying wooden wonders

[@nightjarflying]

@@JohnSmith-bx8zb Don't swallow that myth created by Mossie fanboys - the devil is in the details. B17s attacking Berlin had an average bomb load of 4,900 pounds each, whereas a Mossie was limited to 4 x 500lb bombs unless fitted with the single 4,000lb non-fragmentation "blockbuster" / cookie. If we take theoretical “thousand bomber raid” of Lancaster bombers, they could deliver 10,000 tons of explosives - it would take 5,500 hundred Mosquitoes to deliver that same amount in fragmentation bombs. One thousand Lancasters would have a crew of 7,000 men while the Mosquitoes would need 11,000 men! Note also that if Mosquito sqns engaged in fully loaded daylight repeated missions every day like the B17s they would have got the same welcome parties as the USAAF got. The Mossies would require escorts or drop loads early to defend themselves. The Mossie requires very skilful flying at takeoff when heavily loaded, especially as both props rotated in the same direction - not a beginner aircraft by any means, while the medium/heavy bombers were fairly docile.